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SONGS, MERRY AND SAD 



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BY 



JOHN CHARLES McNEILL 




CHARLOTTE, N. C. 

STONE & BARRINGER CO. 
1906 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Received 

JUL 26 1906 

CoDvrigiH Entry 

CLASS /fQs XXc. No. 

COPY B. 



7*5 3^r 



Copyright, 1906 
John Charles McNeill 



TO 

JOSEPH P. CALDWELL 
("The Old Man") 



Almost all these verses have been published be- 
fore, a good many in The Century Magazine, 
some in The Youth's Companion, and the oth- 
ers in The Charlotte Observer. Thanks are 
due these periodicals for their courteous per- 
mission to republish. 



CONTENTS 



JPAGE 

The Bride - - - - 11 

"Oh, Ask Me Not" 13 

Isabel - - - - - 15 

To — 17 

To Melvin Gardner: Suicide- - 19 

Away Down Home 21 

For Jane's Birthday - - - -23 

A Secret 25 

The Old Bad Woman - - - 27 

Valentine 29 

A Photograph - - - 31 

Jesse Covington 32 

An Idyl - - - - 34 

Home Songs 36 

M. W. Ransom - - - - 37 

Protest ----- 39 

Oblivion - - - - - 41 

Now - - - - - 42 

Tommy Smith - - - 43 

Before Bedtime 45 

"If I Could Glimpse Him" - - - 46 

Attraction 48 

Love's Fashion - - - - 49 

Alcestis 50 

Reminiscence - - - - 52 

9 



PAGE 

SoXXET - - - - M 

Lines - - - - 55 

Ax Easter Hymx 56 

A Christmas Hymx - - - 58 

Whbi I Go Hojh 60 

Odessa - - - "• 62 

Triples ----- 64 

Suxburxt Boys - - ~ - 65 

Gray Days 67 

Ax Tvyat.td - 68 

A Caged Mockixg-Bird 69 

Dawk - - 71 

Harvest - - - - 78 

Two Pictures - 73 

October - - - - 75 

The Old Clock - - * 78 

Tear Stalxs - - - - 79 

A Prayer - - - - - 80 

She Belxg Youxg 81 

Pall Joxes - - - - 82 

The Drudge 84 

The Wife - - - - - 86 

Visiox ----- 88 

September - - - - - 90 

Barefooted - - - - 9-2 

Pardox Time - - - - 94 

The Rattlesxake 95 

The Prisoxer - - - - 96 

Soxxet ----- 97 

Folk Soxg - - - - - 98 

"97:" The Fast Mail - - - 100 
Suxdowx ----- 103 

At Sea ----- 104 
L'exvoi ----- 105 

10 



THE BRIDE 

The little white bride is left alone 

With him, her lord ; the guests have gone ; 

The festal hall is dim. 
No jesting now, nor answering mirth. 
The hush of sleep falls on the earth 

And leaves her here with him. 

Why should there be, O little white bride, 
When the world has left you by his side, 

A tear to brim your eyes? 
Some old love-face that comes again, 
Some old love-moment sweet with pain 

Of passionate memories? 

Does your heart yearn back with last regret 
For the maiden meads of mignonette 

And the fairy-haunted wood, 
That you had not withheld from love, 
A little while, the freedom of 

Your happy maidenhood? 
11 



Or is it but a nameless fear, 

A wordless joy, that calls the tear 

In dumb appeal to rise, 
When, looking on him where he stands, 
You yield up all into his hands, 

Pleading into his eyes? 

For days that laugh or nights that weep 
You two strike oars across the deep 

With life's tide at the brim; 
And all time's beauty, all love's grace 
Beams, little bride, upon your face 

Here, looking up at him. 



12 



; 



"OH, ASK ME NOT" 

Love, should I set my heart upon a crown, 

Squander my years, and gain it, 
What recompense of pleasure could I own? 

For youth's red drops would stain it. 

Much have I thought on what our lives may 
mean, 

And what their best endeavor, 
Seeing we may not come again to glean, 

But, losing, lose forever. 

Seeing how zealots, making choice of pain, 

From home and country parted, 
Have thought it lif e to leave their fellows slain, 

Their women broken-hearted; 

How teasing truth a thousand faces claims, 

As in a broken mirror, 
And what a father died for in the flames 

His own son scorns as error ; 

13 



How even they whose hearts were sweet with 
song 

Must quaff oblivion's potion, 
And, soon or late, their sails be lost along 

The all-surrounding ocean: 

Oh, ask me not the haven of our ships, 

Nor what flag floats above you ! 
I hold you close, I kiss your sweet, sweet lips, 

And love you, love you, love you ! 



u 



ISABEL 

When first I stood before you, 

Isabel, 
I stood there to adore you, 

In your spell ; 
For all that grace composes, 
And all that beauty knows is 
Your face above the roses, 

Isabel. 

You knew the charm of flowers, 

Isabel, 
Which, like incarnate hours, 

Rose and fell 
At your bosom, glowed and gloried, 
White and pale and pink and florid, 
And you touched them with your forehead, 

Isabel. 

Amid the jest and laughter, 

Isabel, 
I saw you, and thereafter, 

111 or well, 

15 



There was nothing else worth seeing, 
Worth following or fleeing, 
And no reason else for being, 
Isabel. 



16 



TO 

Some time, far hence, when Autumn sheds 

Her frost upon your hair, 
And you together sit at dusk, 

May I come to you there? 
And lightly will our hearts turn back 

To this, then distant, day 
When, while the world was clad in flowers, 

You two were wed in May. 

When we shall sit about your board 

Three old friends met again, 
Joy will be with us, but not much 

Of jest and laughter then; 
For Autumn's large content and calm, 

Like heaven's own smile, will bless 
The harvest of your happy lives 

With store of happiness. 

May you, who, flankt about with flowers, 
Will plight your faith to-day, 

Hold, evermore enthroned, the love 
Which you have crowned in May ; 

17 



And Time will sleep upon his scythe, 
The swallow rest his wing, 

Seeing that you at autumntide 
Still clasp the hands of spring. 



18 



TO MELVIN GARDNER: SUICIDE 

A flight of doves, with wanton wings, 

Flash white against the sky. 
In the leafy copse an oriole sings, 

And a robin sings hard by. 
Sun and shadow are out on the hills ; 
The swallow has followed the daffodils ; 
In leaf and blade, life throbs and thrills 

Through the wild, warm heart of May. 



To have seen the sun come back, to have seen 

Children again at play, 
To have heard the thrush where the woods are 
green 

Welcome the new-born day, 
To have felt the soft grass cool to the feet, 
To have smelt earth's incense, heavenly sweet, 
To have shared the laughter along the street, 

And, then, to have died in May ! 

19 



A thousand roses will blossom red, 

A thousand hearts be gay, 
For the summer lingers just ahead 

And June is on her way ; 
The bee must bestir him to fill his cells, 
The moon and the stars will weave new spells 
Of love and the music of marriage bells — 

And, oh, to be dead in May! 



20 



AWAY DOWN HOME 

? T will not be long before they hear 

The bullbat on the hill, 
And in the valley through the dusk 

The pastoral whippoorwill. 
A few more friendly suns will call 

The bluets through the loam 
And star the lanes with buttercups 
Away down home. 

"Knee-deep !" from reedy places 

Will sing the river frogs. 
The terrapins will sun themselves 

On all the jutting logs. 
The angler's cautious oar will leave 

A trail of drifting foam 
Along the shady currents 

Away down home. 

The mocking-bird will feel again 

The glory of his wings, 
And wanton through the balmy air 

And sunshine while he sings, 

21 



With a new cadence in his call, 

The glint-wing'd crow will roam 
From field to newly-furrowed field 
Away down home. 

When dogwood blossoms mingle 
With the maple's modest red, 

And sweet arbutus wakes at last 
From out her winter's bed, 

'T would not seem strange at all to meet 
A dryad or a gnome, 

Or Pan or Psyche in the woods 
Away down home. 

Then come with me, thou weary heart ! 

Forget tlry brooding ills, 
Since God has come to walk among 

His valleys and his hills ! 
The mart will never miss thee, 

Nor the scholar's dusty tome, 
And the Mother waits to bless thee, 
Away down home. 



22 



FOR JANE'S BIRTHDAY 

If fate had held a careless knife 

And clipped one line that drew, 
Of all the myriad lines of life, 

From Eden up to you; 
If, in the wars and wastes of time, 

One sire had met the sword, 
One mother died before her prime 

Or wed some other lord ; 

Or had some other age been blest, 

Long past or yet to be, 
And you had been the world's sweet guest 

Before or after me: 
I wonder how this rose would seem, 

Or yonder hillside cot; 
For, dear, I cannot even dream 

A world where you are not ! 

Thus heaven forfends that I shall drink 
The gall that might have been, 

If aught had broken a single link 
Along the lists of men ; 
23 



And heaven forgives me, whom it loves. 

For feigning such distress: 
My heart is happiest when it proves 

Its depth of happing . 

Enough to see you where you are, 

Radiant with maiden mirth! 
To bless whatever blessed star 

Presided o ? er your birth, 
That, on this immemorial morn, 

When heaven was bending low. 
The gods were kind and you were born 

Twentv sweet vears ago ! 



24 



A SECRET 

A little baby went to sleep 

One night in his white bed, 
And the moon came by to take a peep 

At the little baby head. 

A wind, as wandering winds will do, 

Brought to the baby there 
Sweet smells from some quaint flower that grew 

Out on some hill somewhere. 

And wind and flower and pale moonbeam 

About the baby's bed 
Stirred and woke the funniest dream 

In the little sleepy head. 

He thought he was all sorts of things 

From a lion to a cat; 
Sometimes he thought he flew on wings, 

Or fell and fell, so that 

25 



When morning broke he was right glad 

But much surprised to see 
Himself a soft, pink little lad 

Just like he used to be. 

I would not give this story fame 
If there were room to doubt it, 

But when he learned to talk, he came 
And told me all about it. 



26 



THE OLD BAD WOMAN 

The Old Bad Woman was coming along, 
Busily humming a sort of song. 

You could barely see, below her bonnet, 
Her chin where her long nose rested on it. 

One tooth thrust out on her lower lip, 
And she held one hand upon her hip. 

Then we went to thinking mighty fast, 
For we knew our time had come at last. 

For what we had done and didn't do 

The Old Bad Woman would put us through. 

If you cried enough to fill your hat, 
She wouldn't care ; she was used to that. 

Of the jam we had eaten, she would know; 
How we ran barefooted in the snow ; 

27 



How we cried when they made us take our bath ; 
How we tied the grass across the path; 

How we bound together the cat and cur — 
We couldn't deny these things to her. 

She pulled her nose up off her chin 
And blinked at us with an awful grin. 

And we almost died, becaze and because 
Her bony fingers looked like claws. 

When she came on up to where we were, 
How could we be polite to her ? 

You needn't guess how she put us through. 
If you are bad, she'll visit you. 

And when she leaves and hobbles off 
You'll think that she has done enough ; 

For the Old Bad Woman will and can 
Be just as bad as the Old Bad Man! 



28 



VALENTINE 

This is the time for birds to mate ; 

To-day the dove 
Will mark the ancient amorous date 

With moans of love ; 
The crow will change his call to prate 

His hopes thereof. 

The starling will display the red 

That lights his wings ; 
The wren will know the sweet things said 

By him who swings 
And ducks and dips his crested head 

And sings and sings. 

They are obedient to their blood, 

Nor ask a sign, 
Save bouyant air and swelling bud, 

At hands divine, 
But choose, each in the barren wood, 

His valentine. 

29 



Ill caution's maze they never wait 

Until they die ; 
They flock the season's open gate 

Ere time steals by. 
Love, shall we see and imitate, 

You, love, and I? 



o 



o 



A PHOTOGRAPH 

When in this room I turn in pondering pace 
And find thine eyes upon me where I stand, 
Led on, as by Enemo's silken strand, 
I come and gaze and gaze upon thy face. 

Framed round by silence, poised on pearl-white 

grace 
Of curving throat, too sweet for beaded band, 
It seems as if some wizard's magic wand 
Had wrought thee for the love of all the race. 

Dear face, that will not turn about to see 
The tulips, glorying in the casement sun, 
Or, other days, the drizzled raindrops run 

Down the damp walls, but follow only me, 
Would that Pygmalion's goddess might be won 
To change this lifeless image into thee ! 



31 



JESSE COVINGTON 

If I have had some merrv times 

In roaming up and down the earth, 
Have made some happy-hearted rhymes 

And had my brimming share of mirth, 
And if this song should live in fame 

When mv brief dav is dead and gone, 
Let it recall with mine the name 

Of old man Jesse Covington. 

Let it recall his waggish heart — 

Yeke-hey, yeke-hey, hey-diddle-diddle — 
When, while the fire-logs fell apart, 

He snatched the bow across his riddle, 
And looked on, with his eyes half shut, 

Which meant his soul was wild with fun, 
At our mad capers through the hut 

Of old man Jesse Covington. 

For all the thrilling tales he told, 
For all the tunes the fiddle knew, 

For all the glorious nights of old 

We bovs and he have rollicked through, 

32 



For laughter all unknown to wealth 
That roared responsive to a pun, 

A hale, ripe age and ruddy health 
To old man Jesse Covington! 



33 



AN IDYL 

Upon a gnarly, knotty limb 

That fought the current's crest, 

Where shocks of reeds peeped o'er the brim, 
Wild wasps had glued their nest. 

And in a sprawling cypress' grot, 

Sheltered and safe from flood, 
Dirt-daubers each had chosen a spot 

To shape his house of mud. 

In a warm crevice of the bark 

A basking scorpion clung, 
With bright blue tail and red-rimmed eyes 

And yellow, twinkling tongue. 

A lunging trout flashed in the sun, 

To do some petty slaughter, 
And set the spiders all a-run 

On little stilts of water. 

34 



Toward noon upon the swamp there stole 

A deep, cathedral hush, 
Save where, from sun-splocht bough and bole, 

Sweet thrush replied to thrush. 

An angler came to cast his fly 

Beneath a baffling tree. 
I smiled, when I had caught his eye, 

And he smiled back at me. 

When stretched beside a shady elm 

I watched the dozy heat, 
Nature was moving in her realm, 

For I could hear her feet. 



35 



HOME SONGS 

The little loves and sorrows are my song: 

The leafy lanes and birthsteads of my sires, 
Where memory broods by winter's evening 
fires 
O'er oft-told joys, and ghosts of ancient 

wrong ; 
The little cares and carols that belong 

To home-hearts, and old rustic lutes and 

lyres, 
And spreading acres, where calm-eyed desires 
Wake with the dawn, unfevered, fair, and 
strong. 

If words of mine might lull the bairn to sleep, 

And tell the meaning in a mother's eyes ; 

Might counsel love, and teach their eyes to weep 

Who, o'er their dead, question unanswering 

skies, 

More worth than legions in the dust of strife, 

Time, looking back at last, should count my life. 

36 



M. W. RANSOM 

(Died October 8, 1904) 

For him, who in a hundred battles stood 

Scorning the cannon's mouth, 
Grimy with flame and red with foeman's blood, 

For thy sweet sake, O South ; 

Who, wise as brave, yielded his conquered sword 

At a vain war's surcease, 
And spoke, thy champion still, the statesman's 
word 

In the calm halls of peace ; 

Who pressed the ruddy wine to thy faint lips, 

Where thy torn body lay, 
And saw afar time's white in-sailing ships 

Bringing a happier day : 

Oh, mourn for him, dear land that gave him 
birth ! 
Bow low thy sorrowing head ! 
Let thy seared leaves fall silent on the earth 
Whereunder he lies dead ! 

37 



In field and hall, in valor and in grace, 

In wisdom's livery, 
Gentle and brave, he moved with knightly pace, 

A worthy son of thee ! 



38 



PROTEST 

Oh, I am weary, weary, weary 

Of Pan and oaten quills 
And little songs that, from the dictionary, 

Learn lore of streams and hills, 
Of studied laughter, mocking what is merry, 

And calculated thrills ! 

Are we grown old and past the time of singing? 

Is ardor quenched in art 
Till art is but a formal figure, bringing 

A money-measured heart, 
Procrustean cut, and, with old echoes, ringing 

Its bells about the mart? 

The race moves on, and leaves no wildernesses 

Where rugged voices cry ; 
It reads its prayer, and with set phrase it 
blesses 
The souls of men who die, 
And step by even step its rank progresses, 
An army marshalled by. 

39 



If it be better so, that Babel noises, 

Losing all course and ken, 
And grief that wails and gladness that rejoices 

Should never wake again 
To shock a world of modulated voices 

And mediocre men, 

Then he is blest who wears the painted feather 

And may not turn about 
To dusks when muses romped the dewy heather 

In unrestricted rout 
And dawns when, if the stars had sung together, 

The sons of God would shout! 



40 



OBLIVION 

Green moss will creep 

Along the shady graves where we -shall sleep. 

Each year will bring 

Another brood of birds to nest and sing. 

At dawn will go 

New ploughmen to the fields we used to know. 

Night will call home 

The hunter from the hills we loved to roam. 

She will not ask, 

The milkmaid, singing softly at her task, 

Nor will she care 

To know if I were brave or you were fair. 

No one will think 

What chalice life had offered us to drink, 

When from our clay 

The sun comes back to kiss the snow away. 

41 



NOW! 

Her brown hair knew no royal crest, 

Xo gems nor jeweled charms, 
No roses her bright cheek caressed, 

No lilies kissed her arms. 
In simple, modest womanhood 

Clad, as was meet, in white, 
The fairest flower of all, she stood 

Amid the softest light. 

It had been worth a perilous quest 

To see the court she drew, — 
My rose, my gem, my royal crest, 

My lily moist with dew; 
Worth heaven, when, with farewells from each; 

The gay throng let us be, 
To see her turn at last and reach 

Her white hands out to me. 



42 



TOMMY SMITH 

When summer's languor drugs my veins 

And fills with sleep the droning times, 
Like sluggish dreams among my brains, 

There runs the drollest sort of rhymes, 
Idle as clouds that stray through heaven 

And vague as if they were a myth, 
But in these rhymes is always given 

A health for old Bluebritches Smith. 

Among my thoughts of what is good 

In olden times and distant lands, 
Is that do-nothing neighborhood 

Where the old cider-hogshead stands 
To welcome with its brimming gourd 

The canny crowd of kin and kith 
Who meet about the bibulous board 

Of old Bluebritches Tommy Smith. 

In years to come, when stealthy change 
Hath stolen the cider-press away 

43 



And the gnarled orchards of the grange 
Have fallen before a slow decay, 

Were I so cunning, I would carve 
From some time-scorning monolith 

A sculpture that should well preserve 
The fame of old Bluebritches Smith, 



u 



BEFORE BEDTIME 

The cat sleeps in a chimney jam 

With ashes in her fur, 
An' Tige, from on the yuther side, 

He keeps his eye on her. 

The jar o' curds is on the hearth, 
An' I'm the one to turn it. 

I'll crawl in bed an' go to sleep 
When maw begins to churn it. 

Paw bends to read his almanax 
An' study out the weather, 

An' bud has got a gourd o' grease 
To ile his harness leather. 

Sis looks an' looks into the fire, 

Half-squintin' through her lashes, 

An' I jis watch my tater where 
It shoots smoke through the ashes. 
45 



"IF I COULD GLIMPSE HIM" 

When in the Scorpion circles low 

The sun with fainter, dreamier light, 

And at a far-off hint of snow 

The giddy swallows take to flight, 

And droning insects sadly know 

That cooler falls the autumn night ; 

When airs breathe drowsily and sweet, 
Charming the woods to colors gay, 

And distant pastures send the bleat 
Of hungry lambs at break of day, 

Old Hermes' wings grow on my feet, 
And, good-by, home ! I'm called away ! 

There on the hills should I behold, 
Sitting upon an old gray stone 

That humps its back up through the mold, 
And piping in a monotone, 

Pan, as he sat in days of old, 

My joy would bid surprise begone! 

46 



Dear Pan ! 'Tis he that calls me out ; 

He, lying in some hazel copse, 
Where lazily he turns about 

And munches each nut as it drops, 
Well pleased to see me swamped in doubt 

At sound of his much-changing stops. 

If I could glimpse him by the vine 

Where purple fox-grapes hang their store, 

I'd tell him, in his leafy shrine, 
How poets say he lives no more. 

He'd laugh, and pluck a muscadine, 
And fall to piping, as of yore! 



47 



ATTRACTION 

He who wills life wills its condition sweet, 
Having made love its mother, joy its quest, 
That its perpetual sequence might not rest 
On reason's dictum, cold and too discreet ; 

For reason moves with cautious, careful feet, 
Debating whether life or death were best, 
And why pale pain, not ruddy mirth, is guest 
In many a heart which life hath set to beat. 

But I will cast my fate with love, and trust 
Her honeyed heart that guides the pollened bee 
And sets the happy wing-seeds fluttering free ; 

And I will bless the law which saith, Thou must ! 
And, wet with sea or shod with weary dust, 
Will follow back and back and back to thee ! 



48 



LOVE'S FASHION 

Oh, I can jest with Margaret 
And laugh a gay good-night, 

But when I take my Helen's hand 
I dare not clasp it tight. 

I dare not hold her dear white hand 
More than a quivering space, 

And I should bless a breeze that blew 
Her hair into my face. 

'T is Margaret I call sweet names: 

Helen is too, too dear 
For me to stammer little words 

Of love into her ear. 

So now, good-night, fair Margaret, 
And kiss me e'er we part ! 

But one dumb touch of Helen's hand, 
And, oh, my heart, my heart! 



49 



ALCESTIS 

Xot long the living weep above their dead, 
And you will grieve, Admetus, but not long. 
The winter's silence in these desolate halls 
Will break with April's laughter on your lips : 
The bees among the flowers, the birds that mate, 
The widowed year, grown gaunt with memory 
And vearnino- toward the summer's fruits, will 

come 
With lotus comfort, feeding all your veins. 
The vining brier will crawl across my grave, 
And you will woo another in my stead. 
Those tender, foolish names you called me by, 
Your passionate kiss that clung unsatisfied, 
The pressure of your hand, when dark night 

hushed 
Life's busy stir, and left us two alone, 
Will you remember ? or, when dawn creeps in, 
And you bend o'er another's pillowed head, 
Seeing sleep's loosened hair about her face, 
Until her low love-laughter welcomes you, 

50 



Will you, down-gazing at her waking eyes, 
Forget ? 

So have I loved you, my Admetus, 
I thank the cruel fates who clip my life 
To lengthen yours, they tarry not for age 
To dim my eye and blanch nry cheek, but now 
Take me, while my lips are sweet to you 
And youth hides yet amid this hair of mine, 
Brown in the shadow, golden in the light. 
Bend down and kiss me, dying for your sake, 
Not gratefully, but sadly, love's farewell; 
And if the flowering year's oblivion 
Lend a new passion to thy life, far down 
In the dim Stygian shadows wandering, 
I will not know, but still will cherish there, 
Where no change comes, thy love upon my lips. 



51 



REMINISCENCE 

We sang old love-songs on the way 
In sad and merry snatches, 

Your fingers o'er the strings astray 
Strumming the random catches. 

And ever, as the skiff plied on 
Among the trailing willows, 

Trekking the darker deeps to shun 
The gleaming sandy shallows, 

It seemed that we had, ages gone, 
In some far summer weather, 

When this same faery moonlight shone, 
Sung these same songs together. 

And every grassy cape we passed, 

And every reedy island, 
Even the bank'd cloud in the west 

That loomed a sombre highland; 

52 



And you, with dewmist on your hair, 
Crowned with a wreath of lilies, 

Laughing like Lalage the fair 
And tender-eyed like Phyllis : 

I know not if 't were here at home, 

By some old wizard's orders, 
Or long; aero in Crete or Rome 



Or fair Provencal borders 



But now, as when a faint flame breaks 
From out its smouldering embers, 

My heart stirs in its sleep, and wakes, 
And yet but half-remembers 

That you and I some other time 

Moved through this dream of glory, 

Like lovers in an ancient rhyme, 
A long-forgotten story. 



53 



SONNET 

I would that love were subject unto law! 

Upon his person I should lay distraint 

And force him thus to answer my complaint, 
Which I, in well-considered counts, should draw. 
Not free to fly, he needs must seek some flaw 

To mar my pleading, though his heart were 
faint ; 

Declare his counsel to me, and acquaint 
Himself with maxim, precedent, and saw. 

Ah, I could win him with authorities, 
If suing thus in such a sober court ; 
Could read him many an ancient rhym'd re- 
port 

Of such sad cases, tears would fill his eyes 
And he confess a judgment, or resort 

To some well-pleasing terms of compromise! 



54 



LINES 

To you, dear mother heart, whose hair is gray 

Above this page to-day, 

Whose face, though lined with many a smile 

and care, 
Grows year by year more fair, 

Be tenderest tribute set in perfect rhyme, 
That haply passing time 
May cull and keep it for strange lips to pay 
When we have gone our way ; 

And, to strange men, weary of field and street, 
Should this, my song, seem sweet, 
Yours be the joy, for all that made it so 
You know, dear heart, you know. 



55 



AN EASTER HYMN 

The Sun has come again and fed 

The lily's lamp with light, 
And raised from dust a rose, rich red, 

And a little star-flower, white : 
He also guards the Pleiades 

And holds his planets true : 
But we — we know not which of these 

The easier task to do. 

But. since from heaven he stoops to breathe 

A dower to balmy air, 
Surely our lives are not beneath 

The kindness of his care : 
And, as he guides the blade that gropes 

Up from the barren sod. 
So. from the ashes of our hopes, 

Will beauty grow toward God. 

Whatever thy name, O Soul of Life, — 
We know but that thou art, — 

56 



Thou seest, through all our waste of strife, 

One groping human heart, 
Weary of words and broken sight, 

But moved with deep accord 
To worship where thy lilies light 

The altar of its Lord. 



57 



A CHRISTMAS HYMN 

Near where the shepherds watched by night 

And heard the angels o'er them, 
The wise men saw the starry light 

Stand still at last before them. 
No armored castle there to ward 

His precious life from danger, 
But, wrapped in common cloth, our Lord 

Lay in a lowly manger. 
No booming bells proclaimed his birth, 

No armies marshalled by, 
No iron thunders shook the earth, 

No rockets clomb the sky ; 
The temples builded in his name 

Were shapeless granite then, 
And all the choirs that sang his fame 

Were later breeds of men. 
But, while the world about him slept, 

Nor cared that he was born, 
One gentle face above him kept 

Its mother watch till morn ; 

58 



And, if his baby eyes could tell 

What grace and glory were, 
No roar of gun, no boom of bell 

Were worth the look of her. 
Now praise to God that ere his grace 

Was scorned and he reviled 
He looked into his mother's face, 

A little helpless child; 
And praise to God that ere men strove 

About his tomb in war 
One loved him with a mother's love, 

Nor knew a creed therefor. 



59 



WHEN I GO HOME 

When I go home, green, green will glow the 

grass, 
Whereon the flight of sun and cloud will pass ; 
Long lines of wood-ducks through the deep- 
ening gloam 
Will hold above the west, as wrought on brass, 
And fragrant furrows will have delved the 
loam, 

When I go home. 

When I go home, the dogwood stars will dash 
The solemn woods above the bearded ash, 

The yellow-jasmine, whence its vine hath 
clomb, 
Will blaze the valleys with its golden flash, 
And every orchard flaunt its polychrome, 
When I go home. 

When I go home and stroll about the farm, 
The thicket and the barnvard will be warm. 

60 * 



Jess will be there, and Nigger Bill, and 
Tom— 
On whom time's chisel works no hint of harm — 
And, oh, 'twill be a day to rest and roam, 
When I go home! 



61 



ODESSA 

A hoeror of great darkness over them, 
No cloud of fire to guide and cover them, 
Beasts for the shambles, tremulous with dread, 
They crouch on alien soil among their dead. 

"Thy shield and thy exceeding great reward," 
This was thine ancient covenant, O Lord, 
Which, sealed with mirth, these many thousand 

years 
Is black with blood and blotted out with tears. 

Have these not toiled through Egypt's burning 

sun, 
And wept beside the streams of Babylon, 
Led from thy wilderness of hill and glen 
Into a wider wilderness of men ? 

Life bore them ever less of gain than loss, 
Before and since Golgotha's piteous Cross, 
And surely, now, their sorrow hath sufficed 
For all the hate that grew from love of Christ ! 

62 



Thou great God-heart, heed thou thy people's 

cry, 
Bare-browed and empty-handed where they die, 
Sea-sundered from wall-girt Jerusalem, 
There being no sword that wills to succor 

them, — 

And Miriam's song, long hushed, will rise to 

thee, 
And all thy people lift their eyes to thee, 
When, for the darkness' horror over them, 
Thou comest, a cloud of light to cover them. 



63 



TRIFLES 

What shall I bring you, sweet? 

A posy prankt with every April hue: 
The cloud-white daisy, violet sky-blue, 
Shot with the primrose sunshine through and 
through ? 

Or shall I bring you, sweet, 

Some ancient rhvme of lovers sore beset, 
Whose joy is dead, whose sadness lingers yet, 
That you may read, and sigh, and soon for- 
get? 

What shall I bring you, sweet? 
Was ever trifle yet so held amiss 
As not to fill love's waiting heart with bliss, 
And merit dalliance at a long, long kiss? 



64 



SUNBURNT BOYS 

Down on the Lumbee river 

Where the eddies ripple cool 
Your boat, I know, glides stealthily 

About some shady pool. 
The summer's heats have lulled asleep 

The fish-hawk's chattering noise, 
And all the swamp lies hushed about 

You sunburnt boys. 

You see the minnow's waves that rock 

The cradled lily leaves. 
From a far field some farmer's song, 

Singing among his sheaves, 
Comes mellow to you where you sit, 

Each man with boatman's poise, 
There, in the shimmering water lights, 

You sunburnt boys. 

I know your haunts : each gnarly bole 
That guards the waterside, 
65 



Each tuft of flags and rushes where 

The river reptiles hide. 
Each dimpling nook wherein the bass 

His eager life employs 
Until he dies — the captive of 
You sunburnt boy 5. 

You will not — will you 5 — soon iorget 

When I was one of you. 
Nor love me less that time has borne 

My craft to currents new : 
Not shall I ever cease to share 

Your hardships and your joy-. 
Robust, rough-spoken, gentle-hearted 

Sunburnt boys ! 



66 



GRAY DAYS 

A soaking sedge, 

A faded field, a leafless hill and hedge, 

Low clouds and rain, 

And loneliness and languor worse than pain. 

Mottled with moss, 

Each gravestone holds to heaven a patient 
Cross. 

Shrill streaks of light 

Two sycamores' clean-limbed, funereal white, 

And low between, 

The sombre cedar and the ivy green. 

Upon the stone 

Of each in turn who called this land his own 

The gray rain beats 

And wraps the wet world in its flying sheets, 

And at my eaves 

A slow wind, ghostlike, comes and grieves and 
grieves. 

67 



AN INVALID 

I care not what his name for God may be, 
Nor what his wisdom holds of heaven and 

hell, 
The alphabet whereby he strives to spell 
His lines of life, nor where he bends his knee, 
Since, with his grave before him, he can see 
White Peace above it, while the churchyard 

bell 
Poised in its tower, poised now, to boom his 
knell, 
Seems but the waiting tongue of liberty. 

For names and knowledge, idle breed of breath, 
And cant and creed, the progeny of strife, 
Thronging the safe, companioned streets of 
life, 
Shrink trembling from the cold, clear eye of 
death, 
And learn too late why dying lips can smile : 
That goodness is the only creed worth while. 

6S 



A CAGED MOCKING-BIRD 

I pass a cobbler's shop along the street 

And pause a moment at the door-step, where, 

In nature's medley, piping cool and sweet, 
The songs that thrill the swamps when spring 

is near, 
Fly o'er the fields at fullness of the year, 

And twitter where the autumn hedges run, 

Join all the months of music into one. 

I shut my eyes : the shy wood- thrush is there, 

And all the leaves hang still to catch his spell ; 
Wrens cheep among the bushes ; from some- 
where 
A bluebird's tweedle passes o'er the fell; 
From rustling corn bob-white his name doth 
tell; 
And when the oriole sets his full heart free 
Barefooted boyhood comes again to me. 

The vision-bringer hangs upon a nail 
Before a dusty window, looking dim 

69 



On marts where trade goes hot with box and 
bale; 

The sad-eyed passers have no time for him. 

His captor sits, with beaded face and grim, 
Prying a listless awl, as in a dream 
Of pastures winding by a shady stream. 

Gray bird, what spirit bides with thee unseen? 

For now, when every songster finds his love 
And makes his nest where woods are deep and 
green, 
Free as the winds, thy song should mock the 

dove. 
If I were thou, my grief in moans should 
move 
At thinking — otherwhere, by others' art 
Charmed and forgetful — of mine own sweet- 
heart. 

But I, who weep when fortune seems unkind 

To prison me within a space of walls, 
When far-off grottoes hold my loves enshrined 
And every love is cruel when it calls ; 
Who sulk for hills and fern-fledged water- 
falls, — 
I blush to offer sorrow unto thee, 
Master of fate, scorner of destiny ! 

70 



DAWN 

The hills again reach skyward with a smile. 

Again, with waking life along its way, 
The landscape marches westward mile on mile 

And time throbs white into another day. 

Though eager life must wait on livelihood, 
And all our hopes be tethered to the mart, 
Lacking the eagle's wild, high freedom, would 
That ours might be this day the eagle's heart ! 



71 



HARVEST 

Cows in the stall and sheep in the fold; 
Clouds in the west, deep crimson and gold; 
A heron's far flight to a roost somewhere ; 
The twitter of killdees keen in the air ; 
The noise of a wagon that jolts through the 
gloam 

On the last load home. 

There are lights in the windows ; a blue spire of 

smoke 
Climbs from the grange grove of elm and oak. 
The smell of the Earth, where the night pours 

to her 
Its dewy libation, is sweeter than myrrh, 
And an incense to Toil is the smell of the loam 
On the last load home. 



72 



TWO PICTURES 

One sits in soft light, where the hearth is warm, 
A halo, like an angel's, on her hair. 

She clasps a sleeping infant in her arm. 
A holy presence hovers round here there, 
And she, for all her mother-pains more fair, 

Is happy, seeing that all sweet thoughts that 
stir 

The hearts of men bear worship unto her. 

Another wanders where the cold wind blows, 
Wet-haired, with eyes that sting one like a 
knife. 

Homeless forever, at her bosom close 

She holds the purchase of her love and life, 
Of motherhood, unglorified as wife; 

And bitterer than the world's relentless scorn 

The knowing her child were happier never born. 

Whence are the halo and the fiery shame 

That fashion thus a crown and curse of love? 

73 



Have roted words such power to bless and 
blame ? 
Ay, men have stained a raven from many a 

dove, 
And all the grace and all the grief hereof 
Are the two words which bore one's lips apart 
And which the other hoarded in her heart. 

He who stooped down and wrote upon the sand, 
The God-heart in him touched to tenderness, 

Saw deep, saw what we cannot understand, — 
We, who draw near the shrine of one to bless 
The while we scourge another's sore distress, 

And judge like gods between the ill and good, 

The glory and the guilt of womanhood. 



74 



OCTOBER 

The thought of old, dear things is in thine 

eyes, 
O, month of memories ! 

Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of, 
Old joy, dead hope, dear love, 

I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet 
To cast down at thy feet 
The garnered largess of the fruitful year, 
And on thy cheek a tear. 

Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf 

To blind the eyes of grief ; 

Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with 

fruit 
That sorrow may be mute ; 

A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep, 
Ere the gray dusk may creep 
Sober and sad along thy dusty ways, 
Like a lone nun, who prays ; 

75 



High and faint-heard thy passing migrant 

calls ; 
Thy lazy lizard sprawls 

On his gray stone, and many slow winds creep 
About thy hedge, asleep ; 

The sun swings farther toward his love, the 

south, 
To kiss her glowing mouth; 
And Death, who steals among thy purpling 

bowers, 
Is deeply hid in flowers. 

Would that thy streams were Lethe, and might 

flow 
Where lotus blossoms blow, 
And all the sweets wherewith thy riches bless 
Might hold no bitterness ! 

Would, in thy beauty, we might all forget 

Dead days and old regret, 

And through thy realm might fare us forth to 

roam, 
Having no thought for home! 

And yet I feel, beneath thy queen's attire, 
Woven of blood and fire, 
Beneath the golden glory of thy charm 
Thy mother heart beats warm, 

76 



And if, mayhap, a wandering child of thee, 

Weary of land and sea, 

Should turn him homeward from his dreamer's 

quest 
To sob upon thy breast, 

Thine arm would fold him tenderly, to prove 
How thine eyes brimmed with love, 
And thy dear hand, with all a mother's care, 
Would rest upon his hair. 



77 



THE OLD CLOCK 

All day low clouds and slanting rain 
Have swept the woods and dimmed the plain. 
Wet winds have swayed the birch and oak, 
And caught and swirled away the smoke, 
But, all day long, the wooden clock 
Went on, Nic-noc, nic-noc. 

When deep at night I wake with fear, 
And shudder in the dark to hear 
The roaring storm's unguided strength, 
Peace steals into my heart at length, 
When, calm amid the shout and shock, 
I hear, Nic-noc, nic-noc. 

And all the winter long 't is I 
Who bless its sheer monotony — 
Its scorn of days, which cares no whit 
For time, except to measure it: 
The prosy, dozy, cosy clock, 

Nic-noc, nic-noc, nic-noc ! 
78 



TEAR STAINS 

Tear-marks stain from page to page 
This book my fathers left to me, — 

So dull that nothing but its age 

Were worth its freight across the sea. 

But tear stains ! When, by whom, and why ? 

Thus takes my fancy to its wings ; 
For grief is old, and one may cry 

About so many things ! 



79 



A PRAYER 

If many years should dim my inward sight, 

Till, stirred with no emotion, 
I might stand gazing at the fall of night 

Across the gloaming ocean ; 

Till storm, and sun, and night, vast with her 
stars, 

Would seem an oft-told story, 
And the old sorrow of heroic wars 

Be faded of its glory ; 

Till, hearing, while June's roses blew their 
musk, 

The noise of field and city, 
The human struggle, sinking tired at dusk, 

I felt no thrill of pity ; 

Till dawn should come without her old desire, 
And day brood o'er her stages,- — 

O let me die, too frail for nature's hire, 
And rest a million ages. 



80 



SHE BEING YOUNG 

The home of love is her blue eyes, 
Wherein all joy, all beauty lies, 
More sweet than hopes of paradise, 
She being young. 

Speak of her with a miser's praise; 
She craves no golden speech ; her ways 
Wind through charmed nights and magic days, 
She being young. 

She is so far from pain and death, 
So warm her cheek, so sweet her breath 
Glad words are all the words she saith, 
She being young. 

Seeing her face, it seems not far 
To Troy's heroic field of war, 
To Troy and all great things that are, 
She being young. 



81 



PAUL JONES 

A century of silent suns 

Have set since he was laid on sleep, 
And now they bear with booming guns 

And streaming banners o'er the deep 
A withered skin and clammy hair 

Upon a frame of human bones : 
Whose corse? We neither know nor care, 

Content to name it John Paul Jones. 

His dust were as another's dust; 

His bones — what boots it where they lie? 
What matter where his sword is rust, 

Or where, now dark, his eagle eye? 
No foe need fear his arm again, 

Nor love, nor praise can make him whole ; 
But o'er the farthest sons of men 

Will brood the glory of his soul. 

Careless though cenotaph or tomb 
Shall tower his countrv's monument, 

' 82" 



Let banners float and cannon boom, 
A million-throated shout be spent, 

Until his widowed sea shall laugh 

With sunlight in her mantling foam, 

While, to his tomb or cenotaph, 
We bid our hero welcome home. 

Twice exiled, let his ashes rest 

At home, afar, or in the wave, 
But keep his great heart with us, lest 

Our nation's greatness find its grave; 
And, while the vast deep listens by, 

When armored wrong makes terms to right. 
Keep on our lips his proud reply, 

"Sir, I have but begun to fight !" 



83 



THE DRUDGE 

Repose upon her soulless face, 

Dig the grave and leave her ; 
But breathe a prayer that, in his grace, 
He who so loved this toiling race 
To endless rest receive her. 



Oh. can it be the gates ajar 

Wait not her humble quest, 
Whose life was but a patient war 
Against the death that stalked from far 

With neither haste nor rest ; 



To whom were sun and moon and cloud, 

The streamlet's pebbly coil, 
The transient, May-bound, feathered crowd, 
The storm's frank fury, thunder-browed, 

But witness of her toil ; 

84 



Whose weary feet knew not the bliss 
Of dance by jocund reed ; 

Who never dallied at a kiss ! 

If heaven refuses her, life is 
A tragedy indeed! 



85 



THE WIFE 

They locked him in a prison cell, 

Murky and mean. 
She kissed him there a wife's farewell 

The bars between. 
And when she turned to go, the crowd, 
Thinking to see her shamed and bowed, 
Saw her pass out as calm and proud 

As any queen. 

She passed a kinsman on the street, 

To whose sad eyes 
She made reply with smile as sweet 

As April skies. 
To one who loved her once and knew 
The sorrow of her life, she threw 
A gay word, ere his tale was due 

Of sympathies. 

She met a playmate, whose red rose 

Had never a thorn, 
Whom fortune guided when she chose 

Her marriage morn, 

86 



And, smiling, looked her in the eye; 
But, seeing the tears of sympathy, 
Her smile died, and she passed on by 
In quiet scorn. 

They could not know how, when by night 

The city slept, 
A sleepless woman, still and white, 

The watches kept ; 
How her wife-loyal heart had borne 
The keen pain of a flowerless thorn, 
How hot the tears that smiles and scorn 

Had held unwept. 



87 



VISION 

The wintry sun was pale 

On hill and hedge; 
The wind smote with its flail 

The seeded sedge ; 
High up above the world, 

New taught to fly, 
The withered leaves were hurled 

About the sky; 
And there, through death and dearth, 

It went and came, — 
The Glory of the earth 

That hath no name. 



I know not what it is ; 

I only know 
It quivers in the bliss 

Where roses blow, 
That on the winter's breath 

It broods in space, 
88 



And o'er the face of death 

I see its face, 
And start and stand between 

Delight and dole, 
As though mine eyes had seen 

A living Soul. 

And I have followed it, 

As thou hast done, 
Where April shadows flit 

Beneath the sun ; 
In dawn and dusk and star, 

In joy and fear, 
Have seen its glory far 

And felt it near, 
And dared recall his name 

Who stood unshod 
Before a fireless flame, 

And called it God. 



89 



SEPTEMBER 

I have not been among the woods, 

Nor seen the milk-weeds burst their hoods, 

The downy thistle-seeds take wing, 
Nor the squirrel at his garnering. 

And yet I know that, up to God, 
The mute month holds her goldenrod, 

That clump and copse, o'errun with vines, 
Twinkle with clustered muscadines, 

And in deserted churchyard places 
Dwarf apples smile with sunburnt faces. 

I know how, ere her green is shed, 
The dogwood pranks herself with red ; 

How the pale dawn, chilled through and 

through, 
Comes drenched and draggled with her dew; 

90 



How all day long the sunlight seems 
As if it lit a land of dreams, 

Till evening, with her mist and cloud, 
Begins to weave her royal shroud. 

If yet, as in old Homer's land, 

Gods walk with mortals, hand in hand, 

Somewhere to-day, in this sweet weather, 
Thinkest thou not they walk together? 



91 



BAREFOOTED 

The girls all like to see the bluets in the lane 
And the saucy johnny-jump-ups in the 
meadow, 
But, we boys, we want to see the dogwood 
blooms again, 
Throwin' a sort of summer-lookin' shadow; 
For the very first mild mornin' when the woods 
are white 
(And we needn't even ask a soul about it) 
We leave our shoes right where we pulled them 
off at night, 
And, barefooted once again, we run and 
shout it : 
You may take the country over — 
When the bluebird turns a rover, 
And the wind is soft and hazy, 
And vou feel a little lazv, 
And the hunters quit the possums — 
It's the time for dogwood blossoms. 
92 



We feel so light we wish there were more fences 
here; 
We'd like to jump and jump them, all to- 
gether ! 
No sleds for us, no guns, nor even 'simmon beer, 
No nothin' but the blossoms and fair 
weather ! 
The meadow is a little sticky right at first, 
But a few short days '11 wipe away that 
trouble. 
To feel so good and gay, I wouldn't mind the 
worst 
That could be done by any field o' stubble. 
O, all the trees are seemin' sappy ! 
O, all the folks are smilin' happy ! 
And there's joy in every little bit of room; 
But the happiest of them all 
At the Shanghai rooster's call 
Are we barefoots when the dogwoods burst 
abloom ! 



93 



PARDON TIME 

Give over now ; forbear. The moonlight steeps 
In silver silence towered castle-keeps 

And cottage crofts, where apples bend the 
bough. 
Peace guards us round, and many a tired heart 
sleeps. 
Let me brush back the shadow from your 
brow. 

Give over now. 

On such a night, how sweet, how sweet is life, 
Even to the insect piper with his fife ! 

And must your troubled face still bear the 
blight 
Of strength that runs itself to waste in strife? 
For love's own heart should throb through 
all the light 

Of such a night. 



94 



THE RATTLESNAKE 

Coiled like a clod, his eyes the home of hate, 
Where rich the harvest bows, he lies in wait, 
Linking earth's death and music, mate with 
mate. 

Is 't lure, or warning? Those small bells may 

sing 
Like Ariel sirens, poised on viewless wing, 
To lead stark life where mailed death is king ; 

Else nature's voice, in that cold, earthy thrill, 
Bids good avoid the venomed fang of ill, 
And life and death fight equal in her will. 



95 



THE PRISONER 

From pacing, pacing without hope or quest 
He leaned against his window-bars to rest 
And smelt the breeze that crept up from the 
west. 

It came with sundown noises from the moors, 
Of milking time and loud-voiced rural chores, 
Of lumbering wagons and of closing doors. 

He caught a whiff of furrowed upland sweet, 
And certain scents stole up across the street 
That told him fireflies winked among; the wheat. 



» 



Over the dusk hill woke a new moon's light, 
Shadowed the woods and made the waters white, 
And watched above the quiet tents of night. 

Alas, that the old Mother should not know 
How ached his heart to be entreated so, 
Who heard her calling and who could not go ! 

96 



SONNET 

To-day was but a dead day in my hands. 
Hour by hour did nothing more than pass, 
Mere idle winds above the faded grass. 

And I, as though a captive held in bands, 

Who, seeing a pageant, wonders much, but 
stands 
Apart, saw the sun blaze his course with brass 
And sink into his fabled sea of glass 

With glory of farewell to many lands. 

Thou knowest, thou who talliest life by days, 
That I have suffered more than pain of toil, 
Ah, more than they whose wounds are soothed 
with oil, 

And they who see new light on beaten ways ! 

The prisoner I, who grasps his iron bars 

And stares out into depth on depth of stars ! 



97 



FOLK SONG 

^5Ef merry milkmaids to their cattle call 
At evenf all 
And voices range 
Loud through the gloam from grange to quiet 
grange, 

VT_d waif-songs from long distant lands and 

Like migrant doves. 
Vv'ake and give ~:r.g 
To passion dust-dumb lips were wont to sing. 

T he new still holds the old moon in her arms 
The ancient charms 
Of dew and dr-** 



. ~? i. 



And, at each day's millennial eclip c T. 
On new men's lips, 
Some old song star- b 

Made of the music of millennial hear* c . 



Whereto one listens as from long ago 

And learns to know 

That one day's tears 
And love and life are as a thousand years', 

And that some simple shepherd, singing of 

His pain and love, 

May haply find 
His heart-song speaks the heart of ail his kind. 

Lore, 



99 



"97": THE FAST MAIL 

Where the rails converge to the station yard 
She stands one moment, breathing hard, 

And then, with a snort and a clang of steel, 
She settles her strength to the stubborn wheel, 

And out, through the tracks that lead astray, 
Cautiously, slowly she picks her way, 

And gathers her muscle and guards her nerve, 
When she swings her nose to the westward 
curve, 

And takes the grade, which slopes to the sky, 
With a bound of speed and a conquering cry. 

The hazy horizon is all she sees, 

Nor cares for the meadows, stirred with bees, 

Nor the long, straight stretches of silent land, 
Nor the ploughman, that shades his eye with 
his hand, 

100 



Nor the cots and hamlets that know no more 
Than a shriek and a flash and a flying roar ; 

But, bearing her tidings, she trembles and 

throbs, 
And laughs in her throat, and quivers and sobs ; 

And the fire in her heart is a red core of heat, 
That drives like a passion through forest and 
street, 

Till she sees the ships in their harbor at rest, 
And sniffs at the trail to the end of her quest. 

If I were the driver who handles her reins, 
Up hill and down hill and over the plains, 

To watch the slow mountains give back in the 

west, 
To know the new reaches that wait every crest, 

To hold, when she swerves, with a confident 

clutch, 
And feel how she shivers and springs to the 

touch, 

With the snow on her back and the sun in her 

face, 
And nothing but time as a quarry to chase, 

101 



I should grip hard my teeth, and look where she 

led, 
And brace myself stooping, and give her her 

head, 

And urge her, and soothe her, and serve all her 

need, 
And exult in the thunder and thrill of her speed. 



102 



SUNDOWN 

Hills, wrapped in gray, standing along the 
west; 

Clouds, dimly lighted, gathering slowly ; 
The star of peace at watch above the crest — 

Oh, holy, holy, holy! 

We know, O Lord, so little what is best ; 

Wingless, we move so lowly ; 
But in thy calm all-knowledge let us rest — 

Oh, holy, holy, holy! 



103 



AT SEA 

When the dim, tall sails of the ships were in 
motion, 

Ghostly, and slow, and silent-shod, 
We gazed where the dusk fled over the ocean, 

A great gray hush, like the shadow of God. 

The sky dome cut with its compass in sunder 
A circle of sea from the darkened land, — 

A circle of tremulous waste and wonder, 

O'er which one groped with a childish hand. 

The true stars came to their stations in heaven, 
The false stars shivered deep down in the sea, 

And the white crests went like monsters, driven 
By winds that never would let them be, 

And there, where the elements mingled and 
muttered, 
We stood, each man with a lone dumb heart, 
Full of the vastness that never was uttered 
By symbol of words or by echo of art. 

104 



L'ENVOI 

God willed, who never needed speech, 

"Let all things be:" 
And, lo, the starry firmament 

And land and sea 
And his first thought of life that lives 
In you and me. 

His circle of eternity 

We see in part; 
Our spirits are his breath, our hearts 

Beat from his heart; 
Hence we have played as little gods 

And called it art. 

Lacking his power, we shared his dream 

Of perfect things ; 
Between the tents of hope and sweet 

Rememberings 
Have sat in ashes, but our souls 

Went forth on wings. 
105 



Where life fell short of some desire 

In you and me, 
Feeling for beauty which our eyes 

Could never see, 
Behold, from out the void we willed 

That it should be, 

And sometimes dreamed our lisping songs 

Of humanhood 
Might voice his silent harmony 

Of waste and wood, 
And he, beholding his and ours, 

Might find it good. 



106 



JUL 26 1906 



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